46 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



it arrests digestion and thus enables one to go for a longer time without 

 taking food with little inconvenience. I have taken it a number of times 

 and found it to be not particularly disagreeable to the taste. Whatever 

 may be said of the medicinal' or dietetic properties of the herb, the manner 

 of taking it, as practiced in Argentina, is both filthy and conducive 

 to dilatory habits, and therefore much to be deplored. In Argentina it 

 might almost be referred to as a national custom, though it is likewise 

 common throughout most of South America. 



The Tehuelche village consisted of six toldos and some thirty individ- 

 uals. They were for the most part well, or at least warmly, dressed in 

 mantles made of the skins of the young guanaco, a small skunk (Conepatus 

 suffocans] or a small cat (Felts pajerd] indigenous to the country. The 

 women were for the most part busily engaged in making and painting 

 these mantles, while the men seemed to have little or nothing to do. 



We remained some two or three hours at the village, deeply interested 

 in the people and in their customs and arts, of which I shall speak further 

 when I come to treat of the natives of Patagonia. After giving a few 

 presents to the women and children and distributing a few packages of 

 tobacco among the men, we remounted our horses and returned to the 

 estancia late in the afternoon, in prime condition to enjoy a good meal 

 of roast mutton, bread and potatoes, staple articles in the menu of every 

 Patagonian sheep farm. 



Late in the afternoon of the seventh of May we left the estancia, on 

 our return trip to Gallegos. We had enjoyed the trip greatly. Every- 

 thing was new and intensely interesting, but with it all there was a feel- 

 ing that we should be making some progress in the securing of horses 

 and outfit. I had seen enough of the country to be convinced of the 

 possibility of taking a vehicle through almost any portion of it, provided 

 only that we could procure such a vehicle and the necessary horses. We 

 had passed two estancias and the shepherd's shanty on our way out from 

 Guer Aike, and since Sefior Villegrand was going to return by a cut-off, 

 I decided to separate from the others and return the way we had come in 

 order to see what success I might meet with in purchasing horses at these 

 estancias, neither of which I found had any to spare. However, on the 

 following day, when I returned to the shepherd's shanty, I succeeded in 

 buying a very fair saddle horse for seven pounds, and after proceeding 

 a few miles further I fell in with a Spaniard, one Francisco Cid by name, 



